


Hide and Seek

by Titch360



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titch360/pseuds/Titch360
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a dark and stormy afternoon, and young Dick Grayson was looking for a way to occupy himself. Find out what happens when he learns a few secrets about Stately Wayne Manor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek

 

The clouds hung low over Gotham City this particular Tuesday.  An unusually slow moving tropical storm had battered the East Coast for the past three days, leaving little choice for many of the city’s denizens but to stay indoors.  Crime was at an all-time low in the city, as even the most hardened of Gotham’s criminals chose to not drown while attempting a B&E or a smash and grab.  Minor flooding had ravaged most of downtown, while the lower-lying areas were inundated with several feet of standing water.

Given its location in the foothills above the city, Stately Wayne Manor found itself enveloped in a constant cloud layer, beset with a continual heavy drizzle, which occasionally opened up into a downpour.  The gray sky outside matched the gray moods of the manor’s occupants.  Bruce, unable to get to the office since before the storm started, and fielding reports every half-hour regarding the flooding of Wayne Tower’s underground parking garage and the general stability of the foundation of the building, had all but locked himself in his study to try to get some work done from home.  He was in the final stages of brokering a deal with a German telecommunications company that would increase profits for Wayne Enterprises by close to a billion dollars over the next two years, and being away from the office during such an important time was nerve-wracking to say the least.  On top of that, Bruce was waiting for a final report to be completed so the deal could be finalized.  The report should have been on his desk a week ago, but he had seen nothing yet, and every minute that drew closer to the deadline shortened his fuse incredibly.

Alfred had spent his days in his normal fashion, yet prayed for an improvement in the weather.  Just because the manor was encapsulated in a taste of London didn’t mean the butler was happy to have his home weather, especially when it caused the changes he had noticed in his charges.  As the skies had grayed, Alfred had gained an edge to his demeanor, and his stiff upper lip had become set in concrete.

Dick found himself in the midst of his first tropical storm.  However, the novelty had worn off when he woke up to heavy rain on Sunday morning that had yet to let up in the subsequent three days.  As a relatively new arrival to the manor, he was a bit more in tune to the changes in attitude around the house.  Except for a rare few occasions, Dick had never felt such an icy atmosphere in the three months of his residing with Bruce and Alfred.  He couldn’t possibly know for sure, but he was certain that the recent shift in attitude was not normal for either of the two men.  He had taken it upon himself to try to lighten the mood around the manor, but nothing had seemed to work so far. 

One such attempt had backfired spectacularly, even though Dick had had no way of knowing that the attempt would be ill-received.  When putting Dick to bed on Sunday night, Bruce had asked if there was any special story the boy wanted read to him.  Trying to lift the mood that had already started to sour in the house, Dick had pulled a Bible out of his bookshelf and opened to Genesis, chapter 5, hoping Bruce could see the humor in the suggestion.  Bruce was all ready to start the story, when he read the section title reading ‘Noah and the Flood’.  He read the passage as quickly as possible, then left the room coldly, leaving Dick feeling like he was in trouble.  He hadn’t known that Bruce had received a call from the building manager at Wayne Tower a half an hour before, reporting minor flooding in the parking garage.  With the storm predicted to grow immensely overnight, and the Gotham sewer system already proving to be inadequate to the task of keeping the city above water, the suggested reading material the child had chosen struck a raw nerve with the billionaire and focused his mind on future damages and rebuilding.

While Bruce had grown angry at being stuck at home day and night, Dick had become restless.  The nine year old, still adjusting to his new, massive living environment, spent Monday in the library, reading.  He had hoped that, being just across the hall from Bruce’s study, the man would take a couple breaks during the day to come see him.  Even if he just popped his head in the door, Dick would have been happy.  It wasn’t until Dick was eating his lunch alone in the kitchen that he found out about the flooding at Wayne Tower from Alfred.  Dick had cried and explained to Alfred the incident from the night previous, convinced that Bruce was upset with him.  He hadn’t known what was happening, he just thought it would be a nice joke to break the tension.

As it turned out, Dick’s hope of seeing Bruce during the day didn’t pan out.  Bruce locked himself away from seven in the morning until just before seven at night, when Alfred announced dinner.  After a tense and quiet dinner, Bruce had planned to go straight back to work, until the combination of a withering gaze from Alfred and a sigh/pout from Dick changed his course for the evening.  They had compromised by playing a game of Monopoly until Dick’s bedtime.  Bruce claimed it was a lesson in high finance, and a way to teach his newfound heir a little something about the business world.  Dick was just happy to spend time with a living, breathing person, instead of a literary figure.  Alfred had observed the progression of the game on his many trips to the Den to attend to his charges, and found hope in the relaxed posture Bruce was able to extend.  He had hope that the following day would be different around the house.

Alfred’s hope was dashed soon after Bruce put Dick to bed, this time reading a less controversial story to the boy.  As soon as he was sure Dick was asleep, Bruce returned to his study to refresh his knowledge of the upcoming merger.  He worked until after midnight, rationalizing to the butler that, if he couldn’t go out as Batman, then he would make sure his company would be able to stay afloat, even if his building was drowning.

Tuesday started just as badly as Monday had.  The rain had intensified overnight as the storm stalled out over the city.  Bruce shut himself in his study even earlier than he had on Monday, assuming that he would be the only one able to work during the day and, therefore, needed to work that much harder.  He was already in an absolutely foul mood when Alfred brought him a cup of coffee at seven thirty, and the butler began losing hope that the day would be salvaged.

At just before nine o’clock, Bruce hung up from his latest call of the day.  Lucius Fox had called to point out that the Germans were still waiting for the final report to be submitted to the FTC.  Bruce had assigned the report to his relatively new assistant head of Trades and Acquisitions, Paul Berger.  The man had looked like a promising candidate when the position opened up late the previous year, and the board could not see any reason not to take a chance on the man.  This merger was his first real test in his new position, and as far as Bruce could tell, it would be his last.

The Trades and Acquisitions Department needed to come up with a fiscal analysis and market impact report to submit to the FTC.  It was really just a formality, because even though there were two large corporations in play with the deal, the market was so wide that there was no possibility of this merger creating a monopoly on the market.  All Paul had to do was put something down on paper that would explain that to the Federal Trade Commission, and the deal could be completed.  Bruce had generously given the man three weeks to come up with the report.  The board thought he was being awfully generous, since the report should have taken no more than one week, and could have been finished in two days, if Paul wanted to put in a long night or two.  Now, with the deadline of Thursday morning rapidly approaching, Bruce had nothing to show the Germans.  If Bruce didn’t have the report by Thursday morning, there would not be enough time to get it to the German representative to read over and approve, and there would be no time to have it submitted to the FTC by the actual deadline of Friday afternoon.  If there was no report, then the deal would fall through, and Wayne Enterprises would not only lose millions of dollars, but a great amount of face in the European market.

Not really needing the reminder of how much of a time crunch he was in, Bruce took a minute to massage his temples, in the hopes of warding off the massive headache he could feel coming on.  Hearing a noise at the door, Bruce looked up and saw Dick stick his head in the study.

“Hi.”

Speaking in a weary voice, Bruce plastered a smile on his face and responded, “Hey, kiddo.  What’s going on?”

Dick looked nervous, and felt like he was intruding, “…Um…I…I missed you.”

Bruce took a hand away from his temple long enough to beckon the boy forward.  Dick’s nervousness fled as he entered the room and jumped up on Bruce’s lap.  Bruce hugged the boy tightly to his chest, reveling in the warm feeling the child’s thin arms gave him as they wrapped around his neck.

“Sorry, pal.  Business hasn’t been going too well these past few days.  I…I hope you know that none of it is your fault.  I don’t mean to take it out on you.  It’s just…things happen.  I’m still getting used to…this.”

Dick nodded, while somewhere in his mind was telling him that he shouldn’t really feel as comforted by the words as he did.  “I know.  Alfred told me about the flood at the building.  I’m really sorry I made you read that story.  Honest, I didn’t know about the flooding.  I just thought it would be funny.  You know, reading about a biblical flood while having biblical amounts of rain.”

Unseen by Dick, Bruce winced.  The sadness in the tone of voice tore a fresh wound in Bruce’s heart every time he heard it come out of the boy’s mouth.  “Don’t apologize, kiddo.  You had no way of knowing what was going on.  I know you’re just trying to help me out, and I appreciate you for it.”

They sank into a quiet interlude, each enjoying being able to spend just a few moments together.  They enjoyed their quiet time for exactly three minutes and thirty-two seconds, when the phone rang again.  Dick made to leave Bruce to his work, but Bruce held on, convinced he could keep the call short and go back to enjoying a few more minutes cuddling with Dick.

Bruce held on to that conviction for all of ten seconds.  During those first ten seconds of the call, the building manager of Wayne Tower explained how much worse the storm had become overnight.  The parking garage, which had had two feet of standing water on the third sublevel the night before, was now completely underwater.  All of the building’s elevators, who’s controlling equipment was located under the parking garage, had shorted out and were inoperable.  There was a foot of standing water in the lobby, and three hundred employees, who had been forced to stay the night due to closed roads, were now going to have to stay for at least one more night, because their cars were now serving as aquariums in the sunken parking lot.

Upon hearing the news, Bruce shot to his feet so fast that Dick had to jump to avoid being thrown to the floor of the study.  The resultant string of yelling and profanity sent the sensitive boy running from the room in tears.  The building manager was glad that he was miles away from his boss at the time of the eruption, but was still rubbing his ear five minutes after the call ended.  Once Bruce was able to calm down a bit, he ordered that the building cafeteria be left open until the employees could be evacuated from the building.  All meals would be paid for out of Bruce’s pocket.  He realized that it would be safer for them to stay anywhere above the ground floor, and ordered that everyone be moved to higher ground.  Anyone willing to continue working was welcome, but they were under no obligation to continue while the natural disaster was affecting the city.  He would worry about the employee’s vehicles later, but the company would help out with repairs to any that could be salvaged and would assist in filing claims with the various insurance companies.

By the time Bruce got off the phone and was able to calm himself enough to not want to go to the cave and destroy a practice dummy, he had forgotten that Dick had even been in the study with him when the call began.

Scared of the outburst, Dick had ran all the way to his room.  He was vaguely cognizant that running in the house was forbidden, but he didn’t exactly care at the moment.  He sat on the window seat and cried for a few minutes, the tears falling down his cheeks matching the rain trailing down the window pane.  He was more prone to tears these days, since the loss of his parents three short months ago.  He wasn’t exactly fond of the new personality trait, but there was little he could do to control it.  On the upside, Bruce was all too willing to hold him while he worked out his demons.  _I don’t think that will happen this time, since I’m crying about him, not them._

Dick heaved a heavy sigh as he looked around his room, still slightly unfamiliar with the space.  It still amazed him that he had been given a room that could have held everything his family had owned, including the trailer, with room to spare.  He resigned himself to another day stuck in the room, and picked up his book to continue reading.  His current choice, one of Bruce’s mystery novels, did little to hold his interest.  After passing three pages without taking in any of the story, Dick put the book back on his nightstand and sighed again.

Dick sat on the edge of his bed, kicking his feet and wondering what else he could do to keep busy as the storm raged outside.  He really wanted to see Bruce, but the thought frightened him.  What sort of mood would the man be in the next time Dick saw him?  What direction would that mood take the next time the phone rang?

Thinking about the myriad amusements available in the manor, Dick began crossing them off the list in his mind.  He couldn’t bother Bruce again, not after what had happened in the study.  That meant he also couldn’t use the library, game room, or gym, as they were all in the same hallway as Bruce’s study, and he couldn’t guarantee he could stay quiet enough to not disturb the master of the house. 

Dick thought about going to see Alfred.  He might even be able to sneak a cookie out of the man, if he laid on a sob story about how Bruce had scared him.  _No, I can’t do that, it would just get Bruce in trouble and make his mood worse_.  Besides, Alfred hadn’t been in the best of moods since the storm started either.  Dick didn’t want to bother either of them.

Playing outside was definitely out, as the view from his window showed the back lawn resembling a lake more than a field. 

Dick had effectively ruled out the ground floor, and going down to the cave was out of the question for two reasons.  First, the clock was right outside of Bruce’s study, and there was no way he could open it without alerting the man.  Second, Dick had been forbidden from entering the cave without supervision.  Not wanting to bother Bruce or Alfred, Dick was running out of options.

Just as he was considering trying the book again, a brainstorm to match the flash of lightning outside his window occurred to the boy.  He had lived in the manor for three months now, and outside of the regular areas where he spent the majority of his time, Dick had seen very little else of the sprawling abode.  A giggle escaped his lips as he thought of just how big the house was, and how little of it he had seen.  Bruce had been promising to finish his tour of the manor for, well…three months now, but something always came up to prevent it.  Thinking about it more, Dick realized that Bruce had shown him almost the entire ground floor, a good portion of the cave, and the exterior grounds immediately surrounding the manor.  However, he had only really seen his room and Bruce’s room on the second floor.  Who knew what else lay on the second floor?

His mind made up, Dick started exploring the second floor.  Leaving his room, he stood in the hall and thought to himself; w _ell, my room is behind me, and I know Bruce’s is right across the hall.  The stairs are to the right, so that means I have to go left._   Dick walked up to the next door, and his hand hesitated over the knob.  _What if they didn’t show me around for a reason?  What if they don’t_ want _me to know what else is up here?  No, Bruce said that this is my home now.  They would have told me if there was somewhere I wasn’t allowed to go._

The door next to his led to an extra restroom, which Dick thought was odd, since it had to be right next to the bathroom built into his room.  Why would they need two bathrooms right next to each other?  Ignoring the riddle, the next door in line revealed another bedroom.  This one was smaller than his own, but still large enough to feel slightly ominous.  Dick and Alfred had worked to make his space feel brighter and more lived-in.  This space felt empty, dead, with a bed and a dresser as the only furniture in the room.  The next two doors revealed identical spaces.  Returning to his own door and moving across the hall, Dick began looking in the rooms he found there.  He stopped himself before entering Bruce’s room, even though Bruce had told him he was welcome in the master suite even if Bruce was not in there.  Today was about exploration, and Dick already knew what lay beyond that particular threshold. 

Bruce’s side of the hall was identical to Dick’s.  An extra bathroom, followed by three more bedrooms.  _Huh, eight bedrooms in this one hallway.  And, there are more doors down the next hallway.  I didn’t even know there_ was _another hallway up here past this one.  Was this place designed to be a hotel or something?  Why do they need so many bedrooms up here?  Maybe I’ll ask Bruce, uh…once he’s in a better mood._

As Dick approached the next hall, he looked back on the one he had just explored.  He wasn’t sure why, but seeing that his room was slightly bigger than the rest of the bedrooms in the hall, except for the master bedroom, gave him the first warm feeling he had that day since Bruce had allowed him to sit in his lap for those short minutes.  Dick knew that Bruce cared, but it was little things like that that reinforced it.  Also, the fact that he was right across the hall, instead of in any of the other rooms, that were farther down the hall, let him know that Bruce wanted him close, _most of the time_.

Dick turned into the next hallway, which wasn’t quite as big as the one he had just left.  It wasn’t really a hallway, more like a rotunda with doors at regular intervals.  Given the spacing of the doors, Dick concluded that these rooms had to be smaller than the bedrooms in the last hallway.

He had had luck in starting on the left in the last hall, so Dick walked to his left and approached the first door.  His hand hovered over the handle as another thought hit him.  He was exploring an unfamiliar house, basically alone in the massive structure.  It was dusky in the open space, and a hurricane was raging just outside of the windows.  Yet, strangely, Dick wasn’t afraid.  Starting on his exploration, he had thought he would be afraid of the open, unused spaces, but he just wasn’t.  Letting his hand drop back to his side, he thought on the strange sensation.  _Why does this not scare me more?  I have no idea what could lay behind any of these doors, and the thought doesn’t bother me.  I don’t think of this place as home yet; I like it here, but it is too new to me.  Some places feel homey, but not the whole house, not yet.  This weather alone should be enough to send me running to my room to dive under the covers._ A particularly large rumble of thunder crashed outside, shaking the windows.  Dick jumped, _Okay, maybe I’m not as…brave…as I thought._

Then Dick had another thought.  _This kinda reminds me of that book I was reading._   Dick had been making his way through the library, one book at a time.  He had begun with the classics, but after a while, he wanted to expand out a bit.  He then had noticed a section of newer mystery novels.  When he asked Alfred about them, he was informed that they were Bruce’s favorite genre.  In fact, they were just about the only books in the library that Bruce bothered with.  Dick had gone to Bruce the next day and asked if he could read some of them.  Bruce, of course, had allowed it, but gave Dick one warning: some of them were absolutely terrible stories.

Dick had spent the next several days reading several of the mysteries, and he had to agree with Bruce, some were horribly written.  One was so bad that Dick had guessed the murderer by the third chapter, and given up on the book after the fifth chapter.  After turning to the end of the book to see if he had guessed right, which he had, Dick put the book back and switched back to the classics.  Since then, he had been switching off between classics and mysteries.

Dick had noticed one thing about all of the mysteries that he classified as terrible: they all used the phrase ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ somewhere in the novel.  Any time he had seen those words, he either stopped reading the book, or prepared himself to be disappointed.  Today, though, those words brought a smile to his face as he applied them to his current situation.

Speaking quietly to himself, Dick again reached for the door handle as he said, “It was a dark and stormy night…uh, afternoon…morning…whatever, that found intrepid Detective Robin on a quest through the barren landscape of haunted Wayne Manor, searching to solve the mystery and find the fabled Chocolate Chip Cookies of Pennyworth; a treasure long hidden, much sought, and greatly desired.  A treasure worth its weight in gold.”

He giggled to himself as he opened the door on another bathroom and thought, _did the designer of this place have a bladder problem?  There are almost as many bathrooms as there are bedrooms.  Was this once a hotel for people who had to pee a lot?_

The next two doors revealed a broom closet and a linen closet.  Those were followed by two empty storage rooms that could have served as small bedrooms, _or dungeons, since they don’t have windows._

These rooms were followed by the first real mystery of Dick’s exploration, a locked door.  It was the first one he had run across in the entire manor over his whole three month residency, and it aroused the detective spirit that Batman had been trying to instill in him.

_I could pick it,_ Dick thought, eager to try out the new skills that Bruce had been teaching him, _but, no, my lock picks are down in the cave.  There’s no way I can get down into the cave, then back up here again, without Bruce or Alfred noticing.  Besides, this door has to be locked for a reason.  Bruce was already really mad earlier, I don’t want to give him a reason to be mad at me later.  I guess I can ask him about it later, but what if he doesn’t want to tell me?  What if he gets mad that I was poking around up here without permission?_

Walking reluctantly away from the locked door, he approached the last door in the hall.  As it opened, a spine-shaking creak issued from hinges that had long fallen into disuse.  Behind the door was a mystery bigger than the locked door to his left.  A spiral, metal staircase led up into the darkness, beckoning Dick to climb its heights and continue exploring the mysterious house. 

Dick followed the metal steps up to the third floor of the house, and the feeling of comfort he had while exploring the second floor disappeared.  First of all, neither Bruce nor Alfred had mentioned that the house even _had_ a third floor.  As he took a couple steps away from the door, his feelings went from thoughts of mild intrusion to those of committing a crime.  _There has to be a reason that this part of the house hasn’t been mentioned to me yet._

While the ground floor felt cavernous, and the second floor felt spacious, the third floor almost felt cramped.  The vaulted ceilings of the other two floors were nowhere to be found here.  Instead, normal house height ceilings, the same height in the hallways as in the rooms, were the norm.  After living for three months with fifteen foot ceilings, nine foot ceilings felt a bit claustrophobic.  The entire floor was obviously disused.  In fact, Dick would bet his trust fund that no one had set foot on the third floor since before he was born. 

Walking deeper into the space, Dick suddenly sneezed as he watched dust particles dance in a shaft of diffused light.  He checked several rooms with just a quick glance, not really feeling too welcome on the third floor, but wanting to finish his exploration.  The third floor was laid out in an “H” shape, and Dick decided to work his way down one side and back the other, until he reached the stairs again.  Dick counted three more restrooms, their tarnished fixtures stained and pitted, but still opulent, relics of a bygone time. 

His search plan was working beautifully until he found his next mystery.  As he exited an empty bedroom, he caught a glint of light from the door directly across the hall.  Unlike all the rest of the doors in the manor, which were kept closed unless in use, this door was cracked open about eight inches.  Light from an uncovered window gleamed off of a full length mirror, who’s covering sheet had slipped and was lying in a puddle of fabric on the floor.

Dick stuck his head nervously in the door and found himself looking at a drawing room.  The furnishings were all covered with colorless canvas tarps, lending the room a beige-ness that allowed one piece to blend in with another.  He sneezed again, as his shuffled footsteps kicked up a small cloud of dust from the unswept floors.  Dick was amazed that Alfred allowed so much dust in the house; the other spaces in the house were spotless.  Then, Dick remembered, this floor couldn’t have been used much, if at all, in several years.  What was the use in wasting time cleaning an area that no one was going to spend time in?

Unlike the other rooms on this floor, Dick spent several minutes exploring what must have once been a favored space of some past Wayne relative.  He lifted several tarps and found beautiful, if well worn, antique furniture.  The fireplace still had some of the remnants of some long ago fire, left from when the currently drafty room was a warm space.  A small closet held smoking jackets and house coats, moth eaten but still with a sheen of luxury.  Stepping back towards the door, Dick looked at the room with a sense of sadness.  _People used to use this room, used to love this room.  Maybe they read to their kids by the fire, or taught them while they sat on the couches.  This is kinda high up in the house, maybe this is where the family spent their time a hundred years ago, instead of in the grand spaces below, the ones that have always felt like they are more for guests than family.  Maybe Bruce and I are just guests here, and the real owners, the real Wayne family, are the ones who lived on this floor._

Sniffling at the sad thought that coursed through his mind, Dick left the room, leaving the door cracked at the same angle he had found it.  His stomach grumbled, and he wondered just how long it had been since breakfast.  Dick didn’t own a watch, and had no idea what time it was.  There was no sun outside of the windows for him to make an educated guess as to the hour.  _I guess I should head back now.  Maybe I can come back after lunch?  Maybe I can talk Bruce into joining me?  Who knows the last time he saw any of this?_

Dick looked to his left, then back to his right, then to his left again, when a startling realization hit him.  He remembered that he had turned around when he went to investigate the drawing room, but the room had been so interesting to him that he forgot which way he had come from. 

_I know, this is an easy one.  I left the door to the stairs open._   Dick jogged down the hall to his left and looked at the corner where the open door should have been, and found no open doors.  Looking the other way got him the same result.  _Must be the other side of the hallway, then._   Running back in the other direction, Dick stopped at the slightly cracked door to the drawing room and stared at it for a full minute.  _This can’t be right, wasn’t the door open on the other side of the hall?_

Dick shrugged and continued to the other end of the hall and rounded the corner easily, expecting to run into the open door to the stairs.  What he found was an identical hall end to the last one, no open doors at either end of the “H.”  _I didn’t turn the wrong way after looking at the door to the drawing room, did I?_

Starting to sweat a bit, Dick ran from one side of the floor to the other, resolutely not stopping to look at the open door again, lest he get turned around again.  Doing this allowed him to realize that something potentially terrible had happened, the door to the stairs had closed.  He ran back and forth once more, just to be sure, when he noticed something spooky.  No matter which way he ran down the hall, the cracked open door of the drawing room always seemed to be on his left.  _That can’t be possible.  Either I’m running in circles, or someone else is up here, playing a trick on me._

Panicking, Dick stopped and entered the drawing room again.  He needed to settle down before he started freaking out.  _Okay, Dick, think.  Something is going on here, you can figure it out.  You need to calm down and take in your surroundings for clues.  Come on, be Detective Robin for a minute and figure this out._

While pacing the room, Dick found an old phone sitting on the mantle.  Intrigued by the relic, Dick picked up the handset and spoke into the receiver, “Hello?  Hello?”  He giggled at the old stick handled phone.

“Hello?”

“AAAAH!”  Dick nearly dropped the earpiece as a voice called out from the phone.

The voice sounded twice more as Dick looked around the room to make sure that no one had followed him up to the room and was trying to scare him.  A shaking hand lifted the phone from the mantle and put the earpiece to his ear, as an equally shaky voice responded to the disembodied voice.  “H…Hello?”

“Master Dick, is that you?  I have been looking everywhere for you.  Where are you, young sir?  Your lunch was ready an hour ago.”

Dick heaved a great sigh, _it’s only Alfred.  But, how is this possible?_   “Al…Alfred?  Um…I…How is this phone working?  I didn’t dial anything, how did you get on the other end of the line?”

Dick could hear a small smile in the butler’s voice, “You have picked up the old butler line…”

Dick couldn’t stop his comment from flying out of his mouth, “Used to call the old butler?  Ohmygod, I’m sorry Alfred, I didn’t mean it.”

Alfred laughed over the phone, “No harm intended, no harm done, Master Dick.  In fact, I think I would be worried if you passed up an opportunity like that one.  No, the butler line is the predecessor of the current intercom system.  Only, I thought all of those old phones were removed from the bedrooms when the new intercoms were put in ten years ago.  How was one left in your room?”

Dick kicked his foot on the old carpet, kicking up another cloud of dust.  “Umm…I’m not in my room.”

“I know.  That was the first place I looked for you when lunch was ready.  Where are you, Master Dick?”

Something in Dick broke, and before he knew it, he was sobbing to the older man.  “I…I don’t know, Alfred!  I’m…I’m lost!  I didn’t mean to get lost, but…I got turned around, and now I don’t know where I am.  Please, help me, Alfred!”

“Calm down, child.  There is no need to panic.  The fact that you are calling me on this line tells me you are still somewhere in the house.  Just tell me the last place you remember clearly.”

Dick took a couple deep breaths in order to steady himself, and to try to stop crying.  _So much for Detective Robin._   “Well, I was in my room and I was bored.  I tried to find something to do, but nothing was interesting to me.  I couldn’t go outside to play because of the rain.  I didn’t want to go to the library, because I wanted to actually _do_ something. I couldn’t go to the gym or the game room, because I didn’t want to disturb either of you when you aren’t in good moods.”  Dick cringed as the last sentence left his mouth, but he continued.  “So, I was sitting there and I thought that, while I’ve see most of the downstairs, I really haven’t seen the upstairs of the house.  So, I decided to go exploring, but then, I found this staircase, and I went upstairs, and I didn’t even _know_ there was an upstairs, and I got turned around, and all the doors are closed, and I think the drawing room keeps switching sides of the hallway, and…”

“Please, Master Dick.  You need to calm down.  Slow down, child.”  Dick had begun talking faster and faster as his explanation wound on, fear slipping easily into his voice.

“Alfred, are there actually three floors to the house?  Or, have I slipped into some kind of Twilight Zone episode?”

Alfred smiled as he said, “Well, Master Dick, if you want a true answer, you can actually say that there are six floor to the property.”

“SIX?”

“Yes, young sir.  Counting from the top, there is the attic, the third floor, where you seem to be, the second floor, where your bedroom is located, the ground floor, I believe you are familiar with that, the cellar, and the…um, sub-basement, if you catch my meaning.”

Dick was thoughtful for a second, “Sub-basement?  I’m not sure I’ve…OH, right, the ‘sub-basement.’  I get it.  I’ll have to remember that one.”  _Of course, the cave.  Leave it to Alfred to talk in code even on a line that no one had thought about in ten years._

“Now, Master Dick.  I must ask, why do you think we are in bad moods?”

_I hoped he wouldn’t catch that._   “Well, you seemed distracted at breakfast today.  It seemed worse yesterday, but…I mean…It was kinda _cold_ at the table today.  Then, Bruce worked all day yesterday, and I didn’t really get to see him much.  Then, he yelled today and…”

Alfred interrupted, “He _yelled at you_ , Master Dick?  Whatever for?”

“Well, he didn’t yell _at me_ , I was just there when he started yelling.  He got a call while I was in the office…”

“When were you in the study, Master Dick?” Alfred interrupted again.

“After breakfast, I went in to see him.  Bruce said it was okay, we even cuddled for a minute.  Then he got a call, and started yelling at whoever was calling.  I don’t know who it was or what it was about, but it scared me.   I ran away, to my room, and that’s when I decided to explore the house and got lost.”

Dick began to cry again when he said he was lost, and Alfred wished he could be transported through the wires to Dick’s side.  “Hush, child.  Everything will be okay.  It sounds to me like you have already had quite the full day.”

A small, pitiful voice sounded on the other side of the old phone, “Alfred, I’m scared.”

Alfred idly wondered if Dick was referring to his current condition of being lost, or of the outburst from Bruce.  “I understand, child, and it is perfectly normal for you to feel this way, if you were lost, but you are not.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re not, because I seem to remember you saying that this house would be perfect for the ultimate game of hide and seek.”

_Hide and seek?  I never said that...although, he is right about that.  There must be a million places to hide around here._   “…Hide and seek?”

“Of course, young master.  Now, since you have had adequate time to hide, it is high time for Master Bruce to find you, wouldn’t you say?”

Dick bit his lip as he said, “I don’t want to disturb him, Alfred.  He seemed _really_ busy today.”

“Nonsense, Master Dick.  He was just waiting for you to get a good hiding spot.  Now, you make sure you are well hidden, and I will inform him that you are ready to be found.”  _Please play along, Master Dick.  If this helps keep you from crying again, I will call it a well-spent diversion.  It breaks my heart to hear you so sad._

“O…Okay.  If you say so.  But…um…could you tell him to hurry?  Please?”

Alfred smiled, “I shall speak with him immediately, young sir.”  Alfred hung up the phone and made for the study.

As he approached Bruce’s office away from office, he could hear a heated, if one-sided argument taking place.  _Dear me, if that is what he sounded like when Master Dick was sitting on his lap, it’s no wonder the child fled._   Alfred entered the room and stood at the door as Bruce continued his phone call.

“…Look, Paul, I’m not sure you understand just what is involved in making this deal happen…We are going out on a limb here, and if the deal falls through, we can kiss the European markets goodbye…It’s called market growth, Paul.  Wayne Enterprises needs to grow with the times…Look, let me lay it out for you.  You were given a fairly straightforward assignment.  You were given an ample amount of time to complete the assignment.  Now, it’s due, and I have nothing…No, I trusted you to get this done, and I have nothing to show for my trust…Look, Paul, I don’t want excuses, I want this report… _Excuse me!?!_   _What did you just say to me?_   I don’t think you understand who you’re talking to, Paul…No, it’s not just my name on the building, it’s also my signature on your paycheck.  Okay, here is my absolute, final word on this issue.  You were given an important report to complete.  You were given three weeks to complete the report; it should have taken you no more than one week to complete it, and if you wanted to be considered for another promotion any time in the future, you could have had the report completed in two to three days and on my desk with time to spare.  Well, now Paul, time is up.  This is Tuesday.  I need to be able to get a copy of that report to the Germans before Thursday morning, so they can approve it and the final copy can be sent to the FTC by close of business Friday.  You are a salaried employee, you were given a company laptop, and I am sure you have access to the internet at home.  Even in this storm, you can still complete the report and get it to me by the end of the day, right?  I am assuming that you still _want_ your job, right Paul?  Never mind the fact that it is the last minute, you can still save your position in my company if I can get a copy of the report.”  Bruce’s eyes widened at whatever the man on the other end of the line said.  “Okay Paul, here it is.  Come hell or high water, I will be in the office on Thursday morning.  When I get there, there will be one of two things on my desk.  There will either be the report, in a form that I can express over to the Germans, or your resignation letter.  And let me tell you, Paul: if I get to my office and neither of those items are on my desk, not only will you be fired, but HR will put such a black mark on your employment file that you will never be able to work in business in Gotham City again.”

Bruce slammed the phone down hard enough that Alfred thought the plastic casing might have cracked.  Not looking up, Bruce held up a hand as Alfred opened his mouth.  Bruce picked up the phone again and began dialing as he said to Alfred, “Alfred, please.  Whatever it is has to wait until I finish this next call.  I am not kidding when I say that the fate of Wayne Enterprises is riding on this next call.  I have to see if someone is in my office today.”

The phone rang three times before a familiar voice answered, “Bruce Wayne’s office.”

Bruce sighed, “Jean?  Don’t tell me you got stuck in the building when the garage flooded?”

Bruce’s secretary responded, “Oh, hello Mr. Wayne.  I’m afraid so, sir.  You’re at home, why aren’t you playing with that little angel you took in?”

Bruce couldn’t help but smile.  Jean had fallen in love with Dick the few times he had come to the office over the past three months.  “Believe me, I would love to, but I just got off the phone with Paul Berger.  Please tell me there is a report waiting for me on my desk.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne.  I haven’t seen Mr. Berger since the day you assigned him the report.  I don’t think anyone from Trades and Acquisitions is in the building, but I can go down there and see if he left a copy for you.”

Bruce growled into the phone, “Don’t bother, Jean, he didn’t.  When I spoke to him, it didn’t even sound like he had started it.  I don’t know what to do about this, Jean.  There’s no time to assign it to someone else at this late hour, especially with the storm still going.”

“Mr. Wayne, I may be able to help you out.”

“Jean, that’s nice of you to offer, but you have enough on your mind right now without worrying about trying to figure out a government report.  Not that you couldn’t do it, but I would rather you focus on getting in contact with your family and making sure they know you’re okay.”

Bruce could hear the smile in her voice, “That’s nice of you, Mr. Wayne, but it is a business day and I am in the office.  I have no problem doing my job.  I know you’re home working, so I can do the same thing from here.  Anyway, I talked to my husband an hour ago.  He and the kids are safe, and they know that I’m safe.  We will be together again once the roads clear.  What I was talking about, however, was…you remember Mark, right?”

“Your intern, right?  Haven’t seen him in a couple weeks.”

“Right, my intern.  It’s finals time for him, so I let him take the time off to study.  Before he left, and as a test to see what he had absorbed about formal business communication, I assigned him to do a copy of the FTC report.  I know, interns aren’t supposed to have access to that kind of company information, but it was for educational purposes, and everything was done in-house, so no data left the building.  He even typed it on my computer, so I would have the only copy.  Now, he’s just a student, but I was impressed when I read it over last week.  I could e-mail you a copy and you can adjust it to make it fit for the merger.”

Bruce felt tears welling up in his eyes, “Jean, are you telling me we have a completed report on hand?”

“I don’t know about complete, but I just sent you the copy for review.”

Bruce’s computer dinged to inform him he had a new email.  He put the phone down after telling Jean to hang on, and opened the message.  Downloading the attachment, he opened the file and read the summary on the first page, a slow smile spreading on his face.  If the rest of the report was as complete as the summary, then this report was just perfect.

Picking up the receiver again, Bruce couldn’t keep a slight waver out of his voice.  “Jean, I read the summary, and if the rest of the report is as good as that, then you may have just saved this company.  I will read the rest of it later and call you back if I need anything, since you…you know…are kinda trapped there.  While I’m doing that, I want you to do two things for me, please.”

“Anything, Mr. Wayne.”

“First, I want you to call up HR, and if anyone is there I want them to draft a termination notice for Paul Berger.  Terminate him for cause, list it as gross dereliction of duty, effective today.  Second, I will be back in the office on Thursday.  The storm is predicted to blow out tomorrow, so I should have no problem getting there on Thursday.  I want your intern, Mark, in my office at ten o’clock.  You won’t mind if I offer him Paul Berger’s position, right?”

“You’re going to offer him a job?  Why?”

“How long did it take him to do that report?”

“Working about half the day just on that report, it took him four days.”

Bruce smiled, “That’s why.  He was working for free, and was able to finish something that a salaried employee couldn’t.  That’s dedication, and I like to see that.  Besides, no one takes an internship unless they think they may be able to parlay it into a full-time job.”

Jean’s smile was evident in her tone of voice, “Mark will be so pleased.  He’s a good choice.  I’ll talk to you later, then?”

“Yes, Jean.  Once I finish reading the report, I’ll send you a reply e-mail.  After what you just did for me, you should get some rest, take the rest of the day off.  Go watch a movie in my office or something, try to relax and enjoy yourself.”

“You should do the same thing.  I’m sure that little angel misses you when you lock yourself away and work.”

Bruce sighed, “I know he does, he told me so this morning.  Oh, one more thing before I let you go.  Tell the building manager to stop calling me at home.  It just raises my blood pressure.  Whatever is going on will wait until Thursday, when I’m back in the office.”

“Okay, Mr. Wayne.  Have a good day.”

“You too, Jean. Thank you.”  Bruce hung up the phone and collapsed back in his chair, his mood far lighter that it was five minutes earlier.  Looking up at the patiently waiting butler, Bruce gave a wan smile and said, “Thank you, Alfred.  That call did just save the company, you know.”  He looked around, suddenly remembering that Dick had been with him a few hours ago, then disappeared.  “Hey, have you seen kiddo?  I think I need to apologize to him for earlier.”

Alfred walked up to the desk and sat down across from Bruce, surprising the man with his familiar attitude.  _Uh oh, something must be up, Alfred never does this._

“No, Master Wayne, I have not seen Master Dick since breakfast.  However, I have spoken to him just before coming here.  That is why I came, in fact.”

_What?_   “Come again?  How did you talk to him if you haven’t seen him?”

Alfred sighed, “I was in the kitchen, refrigerating Master Dick’s lunch and getting ready to go looking for him…”

Bruce looked startled, “Dick missed lunch?”

“Yes, but let me finish, please.  I was about to go looking for the young Master when the old butler phone began ringing.”

“The what?”

“The system in place before the intercom, keep up please.  Master Dick was playing around with an old phone he found upstairs and ended up speaking to me.”

Bruce began getting nervous, “Okay, why do I feel like I shouldn’t like where this is going?”

Alfred met the man’s eyes, “Because you probably won’t like it.  Master Dick said he was exploring the upper levels because he didn’t want to bother either of us while we were in, what he called, bad moods.  He felt like he was not welcome on this entire floor of the house, so he went looking for something he could do that would keep him out of our hair.”

“Oh, kiddo.  This is my fault, I…”

Alfred interrupted, “Yes, it is.  He reported being rather frightened when you were yelling over the phone.  He realizes that you were not angry at him, but it was still enough to send him running to his room in tears.  You must watch your temper around him, Master Bruce.  He is a very sensitive child.”

“Alfred, I feel terrible.  Where is he?  I need to explain to him what’s been going on today.”

“The young Master is hiding on the third floor.”

Bruce looked shocked, “Did you say the _third_ floor?  No one’s been up there in ages.  Did I really scare him that much?”

“No, Master Bruce.  As I said, he was exploring the house and followed his curiosity.  However, you know that space is not very friendly to those with active imaginations, as Master Dick possesses.  The door to the stairs closed, and he has gotten himself turned around and quite lost.”

Bruce looked puzzled, “Lost?  You just said he was hiding.”

Alfred nodded, “I did.  Master Dick was in tears because he believed himself to be lost in a haunted house.  Now, you and I know that not to be the case, but to the young boy, a large, gothic mansion can be many things.  Master Dick is hiding because I convinced him that no one could possibly be afraid when playing hide and seek.”

Bruce broke out in a large grin, “Hide and seek?  Alfred, I’m envious of your way with children.”

Alfred returned the smile, “Be that as it may, since he has taken it upon himself to hide, you must now take it upon yourself to seek.  It has been quite a few minutes since I spoke with him.  He may be feeling like you are not coming.  He was afraid that you would be too busy with work to want to come rescue him.  I daresay that he will make it quite easy to find him.”

Bruce stood up, a determined look in his eye, “Well, then.  I haven’t a moment to lose.  I just have to teach him the one incontrovertible fact that can be learned in Gotham.”

“What is that, Master Bruce?”

The smile faded from Bruce’s face as he said, “No one can hide from Batman.”

Bruce swept from the room, but not before Alfred gave him a large handful of chocolate chip cookies, explaining that, since both of them missed lunch, they would need a snack to tide them over.  Bruce popped one in his mouth as he walked up to the second floor, then another as he opened the door to the stairs to the third floor.  The rest found their way into his shirt pocket as he propped the door open and let his eyes adjust to the dim light.

_Now I know why no one has been up here in so long.  This place is downright creepy._   As Bruce took a few steps forward, he sneezed as dust got up his nose.  From the hallway to his left, he was sure he heard a light giggle.  _Good, kiddo is up here, after all._

Looking at the floor, Bruce saw a multitude of fresh, small footprints on the dusty floor.  _Come on, Dick, this is too easy.  I know you want to be found, but I guess Robin is going to have to get some new lessons in stealth.  Then again, you weren’t looking to sneak in, you were looking to run away._

Bruce examined the path his ward had laid out and followed it, going from room to room in the same manner as Dick had done almost an hour earlier.  He noticed large swaths of cleared floors as he examined the paths in the middle of the hallway.  _He ran back and forth.  His trail shows signs of fear, panic.  He must have been scared out of his mind, thinking he was trapped up here.  Oh, Kiddo, I’m so sorry.  I should have shown all this to you earlier._

Following the trail to the end, Bruce found himself outside the drawing room he had been in and out of three times already.  Finding nothing, Bruce resigned himself to a room to room search.  _Alfred did say he was going to hide.  I guess he wants me to see what Robin can do on his own._

As Bruce turned back to start at the room closest to the stairs, a noise from the drawing room drew his attention.  A high pitched sneeze was followed by a whispered ‘Oh, crud.’  Bruce stuck his head back into the drawing room, shaking his head as he still saw nothing.

Turning, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  Turning back, he looked closer and saw a pair of small shoes sticking out from under the canvas tarp covering an old wingchair.  _Sorry, Little Bird, but no one hides from Batman._

Walking back into the drawing room, Bruce pulled another cookie out of his pocket and stood next to the chair.  He could barely make out a boy-sized lump under the covering.  He smiled as he said to himself, “Well, I guess Dick found a really good hiding place.  It’s going to take me hours to find him.  Maybe I should stop for dinner first; come back later.  Well, I guess I can always take a short break in this chair and eat one of these chocolate chip cookies that Alfred gave me.  Dick won’t notice if one is missing.”  Bruce was slowly lowering himself down into the chair, going slow in order to not land on the boy.  “I’ll just sit…right…huh?”  Bruce made it all the way into the chair without feeling anything but canvas and old cushion.

“Hi”

“AAAAAH!”  It was Bruce’s turn to scream in shock.

Dick stood next to the chair, munching on the chocolate chip cookie that had, until just seconds ago, been in Bruce’s hand.

“Geez, Dick.  What…Where…How did you do that?  Why am I not sitting on you?”

Dick smiled in between bites, “Well, you sat down too slow.  You know, you walked by me four times?  It probably would have been five or six if I didn’t have to sneeze.  I slipped down to the floor and under the chair when your back was turned.  There’s a hole in the tarp that I could see you through.  I just waited for you to sit down.  Come on, you know it was way better this way.”  Dick took another bite of cookie.

Bruce was still astonished, “How did you get my cookie out of my hand without me knowing it?”

“You dropped it when you sat down.”

Bruce looked slightly disgusted, “…And you picked up something off this dusty floor and ate it?”

Dick’s smile grew, “Not exactly.  I was actually expecting you to drop it when you didn’t sit on me.  When you did, I just…caught it.”

Bruce’s smile grew as he pulled the boy into his lap.  “Clever bird.  Dick, I’m sorry about this morning.  I didn’t mean to make you run away.  Things are just going really bad at work right now, but I’ll explain all of that to you later.  Now, I want to know what made you come up here.”

Dick pulled two more cookies out of Bruce’s pocket, handed one to the man, and explained, “I wanted something to do, and those mystery novels of yours got me thinking: I don’t really know my way around the house.  There could have been anything here, and I didn’t know about any of it.”

“I didn’t know you were reading the mysteries.  Every time I see you reading, it is one of the classics.”

“I’ve been switching off.  The mysteries never last too long.”

Bruce smirked, “You able to figure out who did it before the end?”

Dick nodded, “Most of the time.  Tell me, Bruce, do you really like those books?  Because some of them are just terrible.”

Bruce threw his head back and laughed out loud, “I’m glad you said that, pal.  Most of them are terrible.  Most of them I never actually finish.  I either figure out the mystery, or the writing is just incredibly bad.  But, occasionally, I find a really good one, or at least one that I can finish.”

Dick sighed, “Oh, good.  I’m glad it wasn’t just me, then.  I guess what we do at night kinda spoils mystery books for us.”

“I would say so, kiddo.  Come on, this dust is playing havoc with my sinuses.  Let’s go back downstairs to the den to talk some more.”

They got up and headed for the stairs, Dick holding on to Bruce’s hand, lest he get lost again.

As they got to the still-open door, Dick looked at it warily.  Bruce looked from the boy to the door and back again before saying, “I propped it open when I got up here.  It has a tendency to close on its own if you don’t block it open.”

Dick looked up at Bruce with watery eyes and whispered, “I was really scared, Bruce.  I…I didn’t mean to get lost.”

Dick was close to tears when Bruce picked the child up.  Thin arms slipped easily around his neck as Bruce balanced the boy while walking down the spiral staircase.  Bruce whispered to Dick as he closed the creaking door to the third floor, “Everything’s all right now.  Tell me, what did you learn from your exploration?”

Dick sniffed, then sneezed again as he inhaled dust from Bruce’s shirt.  Bruce couldn’t help but smile.  Dick said, “Three things.  First, the third floor is really creepy, not because no one ever goes up there, but because there is evidence that it was once an often-used space that has lost its purpose.  People spent lots of time in that drawing room, Bruce, and probably in the rest of the rooms, too.  Over time, it must have lost its people, or the people lost it.  It’s kinda sad, in a way.

“Second, there is only one locked door in the whole house, and it’s that one there.”  Dick pointed to the door next to the staircase that had intrigued him so much earlier.  “What’s in that room, Bruce?”

Bruce looked apprehensive, and Dick was immediately sorry for asking.  “It’s okay, Bruce, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Closing his eyes, Bruce said, “No, I want to.  This is your house now, too.  You deserve to know what everything is here.  That was my parent’s bedroom.”

Dick gasped, then whispered in wonder, “Wow.  So that’s why the door was locked.  I’m so sorry, Bruce.  I was thinking of picking the lock to see what was in there.  I’m glad I didn’t now.  That should be your space, and your space alone.”

Bruce gave a warm smile, warmer than Dick thought he should have been capable of at that moment.  _Warmer than one I could have given if I was standing outside my parent’s trailer right now._   Bruce said, “Thank you, pal, but it isn’t my space.  It’s theirs.  I haven’t been inside that room since the night they…”

“Stop.  Don’t tell me, Bruce.  It’s going to hurt you, and I can’t stand to see that.  Come on, let’s get away from here.  We don’t need any more bad memories.”

Bruce gratefully carried Dick away from his parent’s bedroom door, not stopping until they stood outside their own bedrooms.  Bruce asked, “You said you learned three things.  What’s number three?”

Dick wiggled out of Bruce’s arms and stood in front of the door to his bedroom and patted his shoulders.  A cloud of dust rose from his shirt, eliciting another sneeze from the boy, “Number three is that the third floor is _really_ dusty.  Alfred is going to want us to bathe and change before going down for lunch.  Do you think we can still get lunch this late?”

Bruce smiled at the child, “It will probably turn into an early dinner, but that just means that dessert can be that much bigger after.  Let’s get cleaned up, then go eat.  After lunch, I have to do one more really important thing for work, but I want you in there, so I can explain why I have been acting the way I have these past couple days.  And then, after that, you and I are going to do whatever you want for the rest of today and all of tomorrow.  No more work, no more calls, just you and me.”

Dick brightened, “And Alfred?”

“Sure pal, and Alfred.”

“Really?”

Bruce beamed at his boy, “Really.”

 

**A/N:  Okay, so this is not the story I promised, it is just the first one done of the several that I am currently working on.  The other one-shot is still a work in progress, but it is a lot farther along now, and should be done soon.**

**Once again, my inspiration had been fickle.  Two weeks ago, I couldn’t put together 1000 words if you paid me.  Today, I am actively working on four stories.  Those are two one-shots (of which this is one), and two multi-chapter fics.  One of the multi-chapter fics is Dark Days, but the other one is something new that I teased in an A/N after one of the chapters in Dark Days.  I wrote out an outline for the new story and it excited me so much that I had to write a chapter for it right away.  Like I promised before, I won’t start posting that one until I finish Dark Days, but that just means that I will be hurrying Dark Days along because I want to write this new one so much.  Stay tuned.**

**Disclaimer: I don’t own anything except for the ideas that are released from my mind.**


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